Neither

  of us moved. We stared at each other like we were frozen in time. The

  dishevelled and greasy mop of stringy dark hair, the cracked lips

  with dried blood around the edges, and the almost inhuman way his

  pupils took up nearly all the color in his eyes gave away that he was

  not in his right mind. After a drawn out moment of silence, his lips

  pulled into a wide smile revealing only a scant few blackened teeth

  in his mouth.

  “Just take what the medicine and go,” I whispered.

  A short puff of air escaped him to be what I assumed was a chuckle

  as his eyes jumped from me, to the apartment around him, then back to

  me. My heart sank as I realized he was considering the fact I likely

  had a better set up than him and I looked weak. My full body shaking

  was confirmation to him that he had a chance to take everything of

  mine for himself.

  “Take it and go,” I said with more force behind my voice.

  My mind flashed back to when I was a pre-teen and my mother set me

  down to talk to me about the sore subject that all women had to

  discuss with their daughters at some point. She had stressed that no

  matter one, if I came face to face with someone wanting to hurt me

  that I had to seem more trouble than I was worth. People wanted an

  easy target, someone they could grab and get away with without

  risking injury or a struggle.

  “I mean it.” My voice was getting a snarl in it. “You might

  win overall, but I will make sure to gut you on the way down.”

  This time his laugh was much more audible, but he snatched my

  supply of pain medication from the drawer, slammed it closed and then

  staggered towards me. I backed away from the door, holding my weapons

  close to me and at the ready. He threw the door open and stared at me

  from the doorway, a deranged smirk on his face. Closer now, he

  absolutely reeked like alcohol. Without another word, he turned and

  stumbled down the hallway and half-kicked open the door on the same

  side right next to the exit door to rest of the building.

  Not wanting to give him time to consider coming back to harass me

  some more, I quickly gathered up my walker and the pitcher and

  hurried back into my apartment, quickly locking and throwing up the

  chain. I ditched my full backpack in the kitchen and spilled a bit of

  the water from the pitcher as I poured myself a glass to try to calm

  my nerves. My mind was racing. How did I not hear someone so drunk

  coming down the hallway? Why did I not lock my door when I left? How

  could I survive if I could so easily make this kind of mistake? If he

  had rushed me, could I have killed him?

  That last question stuck with me. I found myself trying to imagine

  having to defend myself and plunging the knife into his stomach. What

  would I have done? How would I have felt? It was surreal to try to

  even imagine what the worst outcome could have been and it terrified

  me even more to realize that one day I was very likely to have to

  face that worst case scenario. Killing a zombie I could easily

  rationalize, they were not really alive or people any more, but a

  fellow survivor? That felt so deeply wrong that even encountering a

  situation in which that might have happened unsettled me to my core.

  Yet, after taking a few drinks of water, sitting down to calm my

  panic, and glancing at the absolute mess the man had made of my

  medicine drawer, anger started to seep through the cracks and

  surround the irrational guilt. He had taken my currently

  irreplaceable supply of pain medicine, medicine I would likely be

  needing after all the effort, bending, and lifting I had just done.

  He had taken them from me because he thought I wouldn’t put up a

  fight against him and since he did get something he wanted, he know

  probably would think he could do it again when he wanted something

  else. On top of it all, having someone intoxicated and stumbling

  around so close to me was a huge liability. He could leave his fire

  escape window open and let someone or something in or he could leave

  the hallway door open without thinking. He was an active danger to me

  and I had to do something about it. Unfortunately, I knew that there

  were very few options to me on what exactly “doing something about

  it” looked like and none of them were appealing.

  If I was a healthy person I could pack up my things and just find

  another, safer place to hunker down. Sure, I would lose some supplies

  I couldn’t carry, but that would be worth being in a more secure

  area. Being that I was not healthy, my options were really limited to

  a few things. I could ignore it and hope for the best, which seemed

  had a high probability of ending badly. I could try to befriend him

  and share supplies. I tried to be a very open minded person, but I

  couldn’t get the image of his wild, crazed look, the look of an

  addict and I just couldn’t see myself every trusting him, even if I

  tried to pretend. That left the last option which was to somehow get

  rid of him.

  I hadn’t said anything out loud, but still I felt like the world

  went quiet around me as I tried to wrap my mind around the idea that

  I was actively considering sacrificing someone else for my own

  survival. It felt visceral and wrong, but at the same time I couldn’t

  see how him being just down the hall wouldn’t end up with something

  terrible happening to me. He would end up getting me killed, either

  by his own hands or indirectly by someone else’s. I put my head in

  my shaking hands and took several deep breaths. I had been on the

  verge of panic before and this was certainly not helping.

  I had to make a decision now. If I waited to think on it, I knew

  that I would almost certainly choose to just wait it out and hope

  because I would get nervous and overly compassionate. No, I couldn’t

  afford that, I had to choose and be able to live with the choice.

  Also, my body would not hold up much longer, the fatigue was already

  clawing at the backs of my eyes and my hips were screaming at me to

  just lay down and rest. If I wanted to get rid of him I had to do it

  quickly. I just had to stop stalling.

  The biggest factor on my side was that if he was so desperate to

  steal my pain medication, that meant he planned on taking them. Since

  he was already very drunk, those pills when mixed with alcohol in

  theory would make him nearly comatose. If I just waited maybe a half

  hour, I could likely get into his apartment with him passed out and

  well… do whatever it was I was planning on doing.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  That was the part I couldn’t reconcile. I just could not

  reconcile the idea of killing him with my own hands. I didn’t know

  if I could handle the mental toil that would place on me on top of

  everything else. Indirectly though, that I might be able to do even

  if it would make me feel guilty. The more indirectly, the better, as

  I could probably rationalize something where I could always delude

  myself by thinking that maybe he made it somehow.

  Going down that line of thinking, I kept coming back to the fact

  if I could just lock him out of the wing it would be the most

  straightforward answer. Just drag him out, which admittedly would

  probably destroy me physically for a while after, then lock the wing

  door and consider the issue solved. I wouldn’t know what happened

  to him after he finally woke out of his stupor, but he couldn’t be

  a problem anymore. The problem was actually locking the door, there

  had to be a solution I wasn’t thinking of.

  I dragged myself back to the kitchen for another glass of water

  and stared at random items in my apartment hoping one of them would

  spark an idea. I wasn’t any sort of diy wizard so finding a way to

  make the actual lock work was out and jamming a chair under the door

  handle was likely to fail with though force put on the door, plus had

  the issue of being dangerous for me in case I needed to use the door

  to escape at some point. However, there was potential in thinking

  about the handle. The door opened outward and all was a convenient

  pull handle. If I could find a way to tie the exit handle tightly to

  one of the door handles in the hallway, then he, or anyone, would be

  unable to open the door. I didn’t have much in the way of string or

  twine, at least none that was very strong, but there was the pile of

  clothes in the apartment next door and I had scissors that could make

  short work making long lengths of fabric. If I used those, I could

  loop them in a way so that in an emergency situation I could slip

  them off the apartment door handle and still use the door to leave.

  That was that. I had a plan and I needed to get moving on it, yet

  my feet felt planted in place. It still felt morally grey at best and

  deep down I knew I would feel bad about it for as long as I managed

  to live. Even though he was a danger to me and obviously not a great

  person to have around, he was still a person. With a shake of my head

  I muttered at myself to get moving and leaving my walker this time, I

  shuffled to grab the scissors, then peeked my head back out into the

  hallway.

  The man’s door was still closed, but I didn’t trust him so I

  slipped in quickly to the other apartment, grabbed a handful of

  clothing almost blind and then rushed back out into the hallway. I

  stared at his door like it would burst open at any moment and I would

  have to turn my scissors on him, but the door remained closed as I

  made several lengths of makeshift rope out of a couple skirts and a

  long dress. That completely, I forced myself not to hesitate and

  think too much as I immediately tiptoed my way back down the hallway

  and leaned my ear against his door. To my relief I heard deep snores.

  Unsurprisingly, he had been too drunk to lock the door behind him and

  his door easily swung open and I immediately threw up my hand to

  cover my nose.

  It was now apparent where the dank, mildew smell in the hallway

  was coming from. Every surface of the apartment was covered in empty

  or mostly empty beer and vodka bottles. The floor was covered in

  dirty clothes, fast food wrappers, dirty dishes, and tied up plastic

  grocery bags that I didn’t want to even try to think what they

  might contain. The only clear path was from the swinging width of the

  door to the couch against the wall to the right where the man was

  fast asleep on his side, fresh vomit dribbling down his chin. I

  recognized the pills he had stolen from me haphazardly tossed onto

  the floor beneath him.

  “Hey, you!” I whispered sharply.

  I winced and half expected to have to slam the door back shut, but

  luckily he didn’t even flinch. He was well and truly under.

  I set the lengths of fabric and scissors next to the door and

  prepared myself for the most physical effort I had attempted in

  years. It could not be helped and had to be done, but that wouldn’t

  stop how much it was going to suck. Nothing to do but to get it over

  with, I ignored how disgustingly squishy the carpet was underfoot as

  I approached him, poked him gently directly on the forehead to make

  double sure he was well and truly out, then leaned down and began to

  put turn him onto his back so I could loop my arms under his

  shoulders and drag him out.

  In other circumstances I would have likely found it pretty

  depressing how light and skeletal he was, but in the moment I had

  nothing but relief for how much effort it was going to take. Once I

  had a good grip on him and was comforted by the fact his head just

  lulled forward without interrupting his snoring, I pulled him from

  the couch and ever so painfully slowly towards the door.

  Every step backwards was a new pain through my spine, my muscles

  burned, and my head swam, but I was doing it. I was slowly making

  progress and over the course of several minutes I was able to inch

  him in a sat up position all the way to the hallway exit door. I

  paused and tried to listen at the door though I admittedly was having

  trouble over my own labored breathing and his deep snores, but at

  this point I was going to take the chance and just dump him as fast

  as I could.

  With a deep breath, I pushed open the door with my back and gave

  one last burst of strength to pull him outside of the door, laid him

  down just outside, and closed the door back shut, falling over from

  using up the last of energy. Tears ran down my face at both what I

  had just doomed another person to and the sheer exhaustion that was

  blaring warning bells through the body, but I forced myself to get

  back to my knees, crawl to his door to close it, then spent the next

  several minutes painfully tying all of the fabric scraps to the

  hallway door handle, then tying them all into a loop at a short

  enough distance to just make his apartment door. With it taut, I

  crawled back and tried to push on the door, but I couldn’t get it

  to budge. It was possible someone stronger might be able to break it,

  but with his withered frame I doubted he could manage.

  I sat for a while, breathing heavily against the door, still

  listening to his snores on the other side. I was both glad and

  terrified that I could still hear he was okay. Maybe the hallway was

  somehow miraculously clear and he would wake up and be able to move

  on to somewhere else, but would someone that deep into whatever

  plagued him be able to do that? I could only come to the single

  logical conclusion that he was very much dead either way. Yet, maybe

  I could with time soften it with a bit of delusion that he would go

  on to sober up and get better. Maybe that is what I would need to do

  to learn to cope with the new state of the world. Let reality go

  fuzzy around the edges and live what little bits of fantasy I could

  manage to convince myself of.